SOCIALIST GROUP BACKS SEN. JOE FOE IN CONN.
By MAGGIE HABERMAN
Connecticut upstart Democrat Ned Lamont's campaign got a donation recently from the self-described leading Democratic socialist group in the country, federal election records show.
Lamont - whose family's political history has drawn attention because of his socialist great-uncle, Corliss Lamont - received the $100 check from the Democratic Socialists of America political-action committee on June 23. Lamont, a Greenwich businessman, ousted incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary on an anti- Iraq war message. Lieberman will run as an independent in November.
DSA official Frank Llewellyn said the campaign "did not solicit us for the donation." He added that the PAC didn't support Lamont because of his famous uncle, saying, "Any candidate who took the position that he did [about the war]" against an incumbent who voted for it would've gotten DSA's support.
Lamont spokeswoman Liz Dupont-Diehl said that the candidate accepts money only from "leadership PACs [and] has a policy of not accepting PAC money. That check is in the process of being returned."
Meanwhile, Lieberman will be feted at a fund-raiser in New York hosted by Mayor Bloomberg on Nov. 1, sources said.